Turns out one of my favorite sayings actually has a name – Hanlon’s Razor. It says “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” An article in The Economist recently recommended using it to squelch the urge for revenge against annoying or deceitful colleagues. Having found that advice to be useful over […]
Being a great believer in challenging myself to get out of my comfort zone and stretch my brain, I took a class in palette knife painting last month. It was apparently part of a self-improvement kick, as I also took a refresher class on perspective drawing. I figured it would be useful both for the […]
It’s been a challenging year and my energy for painting was in short supply, so I was thrilled when the urge hit me, strongly, this month. Here’s how it goes. First I sort through my photos thinking about what to paint. Next I have a phase where I try a few thumbnail sketches to test […]
A friend’s email signature contained this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, which I loved: “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” Good advice, and there are certainly things I’ve watched others do that made me vow to never do the same; I call them negative role models. […]
According to John Steinbeck, quoted in the Economist, “Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” Steinbeck was talking about writing, while the Economist article discussed the concept in relation to technological advances building on each other. I believe it applies equally […]
For people who know Chicago, the Marina Towers condo on the river is instantly recognizable and popularly known as Corncob Towers, for its shape. For those who don’t, a photo or, in this case, a painting, could be confusing. Let me digress a bit and provide some background. While attending graduate school in Indiana, I […]
We are in an unusually politicized period of history where news is almost always bad and elected officials often sow divisiveness rather than solve problems. A recent editorial in the New York Times suggests that art can relieve some of this stress, offering beauty even in an ugly world. Thanks to my cousin Jonathan I […]
Tom Petty’s “the waiting is the hardest part” was the intriguing lead-in to a Wall Street Journal article shared by the wonderful investment advisors at Reservoir Financial. Alison Gopnikit’s article cited a classic social psych experiment that measured the ability of toddlers to resist temptation – in the form of marshmallows. Relating it to investing, […]
You’ll be relieved to know this post isn’t about politics, current events, liars, or anything criminal. Instead, it was inspired by a quote from Albert Camus. He said “fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” My immediate thought was that his statement applies to painting, too. Think about it. A painting is […]
Since we pronounced ourselves semi-retired – the transition is taking a few years, LOL – we’ve had more time to cook. The pandemic amplified that, since we’re spending much more time at home and not going to restaurants. We’ve graduated from joking about recipes for our “snowflakes” – one of a kind experiments with whatever […]
